


You Need a Break- Pidge & Worked Themselves to Exhaustion

by the_sinnamon_roll_writes



Series: Bad Things Happen [10]
Category: Keith & Pidge - Fandom, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Could be read as kidge or not idk, I know that’s enough for some of us with pairings we love, I think that Pidge gets incredbly grumpy when she's tired, Pidge | Katie Holt Angst, Pidge | Katie Holt Whump, not much else, not romantic but hey they talk, only rated T for cursing, poor poor pidge, she's just having a really tough time in this series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 11:09:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17385350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_sinnamon_roll_writes/pseuds/the_sinnamon_roll_writes
Summary: This one takes place after Shiro goes missing. Pidge has a bit of a rough time handling that, and gets very cranky, and Keith is just trying his hardest to help. This was a request!





	You Need a Break- Pidge & Worked Themselves to Exhaustion

Keith was worried about Pidge. After himself, she was probably the one most affected by Shiro’s disappearance. Although she’d agreed with the others- that they needed to keep moving forward, instead of spending more time looking for him- Keith had walked in on her on several occasions to find her working on various ‘projects’ that she didn’t want to share with him. She already didn’t sleep enough- now with Shiro missing, Keith was starting to wonder if she was sleeping at all. If she had been determined to find them before, now she was downright obsessed. 

He was still so new to leadership, he had no idea how to approach that with her. He could only hope that this would move on without him needing to step in. 

After the meeting, he realized that wouldn’t be the case. 

•••

“While we still don’t have the numbers to secure all planets in this quadrant, we have devised a strategy that should weaken their grip. Then we regroup, and hit them again where their forces are more clustered. If we can get them surrounded and cut off supply trains and communications from the rest of the Galra, we should be able to take the rest of it easily.” Should, being the key word there. When Keith was satisfied he had relayed the gist of the plan, he looked over to Pidge to let her get into the specifics. 

Unfortunately, it seemed she’d missed her cue. In fact, she seemed to be on another plane entirely. 

“Pidge? Um- Pidge?” Keith wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate to throw something at her. 

Luckily, Hunk was sitting right beside her, and elbowed her hard enough to jolt her back to reality. She jumped and looked around quickly. “Oh- right. Well, we’ll need to form several different teams...”

•••

After all was said and done, Pidge didn’t hang around and chat. She left the briefing room almost immediately, and Keith had to jog after her to catch her. “Hey, Pidge. Can we talk?”

“What?” 

Not exactly the enthusiastic start to the conversation Keith might’ve hoped for, but he wasn’t exactly surprised by her curtness. Well, if she didn’t want to chit chat, then neither would he. 

“What happened in there?” He tried to keep an easy tone, but he wasn’t sure how it was coming across. It was so much easier to talk to Pidge before he became the leader of Voltron. They were both very straightforward with each other, and they both liked it that way. Despite their tough start, they’d grown rather close. It was refreshing to have someone to talk plainly with. They trusted each other fully, and that led them to be one of the most efficient duos when sent on paired missions. 

But when Keith had been chosen by the Black Lion to lead Voltron, Pidge had started acting withdrawn, and he wasn’t entirely sure why. He knew if he asked, she would give him an honest answer like always, but he wasn’t really sure he wanted to know. Although he probably wouldn’t admit it, she was one of his closest friends. He didn’t like the idea that their friendship might be at risk. 

“Don’t worry about it. I was just a little spacey.”

“Because we’re in space?” he asked, channeling Lance and trying to draw out a smile. It didn’t work, and he felt stupid. “It seems like you’ve been out of it a lot lately, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Like I said, don’t worry about it. Just been working a lot, that’s where my mind is.”

Ah. There it was. That last sentence was just what Keith hadn’t wanted to hear. Pidge was working too hard. He briefly wondered how long she had been awake. The longer he looked at her, the more he realized she looked terrible. He felt guilty when he reminded himself that it was his duty now to make sure the others were taking care of themselves. And judging by how she looked right now, he hadn’t been doing a very good job of that. “Maybe you should take a break. You look like you need a rest. 

“I’ve been getting plenty of rest,” she said with bags under her eyes and a totally straight face. “And I don’t have time to take a break. I’ve got a lot of stuff to get done.”

“Do you have any leads?”

Pidge paused, scowling. “Not exactly. But I have leads that could get me to leads. I just need to get some of this done, okay? Are we done wasting time here?”

“Look, I know you want to find Shiro- and Matt and your dad- but you’re not going to be much good to them if you’re so tired you can’t function,” he said reasonably. 

“Yeah, let’s talk about who’s not much good,” Pidge muttered under her breath. 

Keith’s eyebrows furrowed into a dangerous glare. “And what the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means. You’re no good as a leader, Keith,” she said viciously. “You don’t listen to anyone besides yourself, you make rash decisions then get pissed off when we question you! You never should’ve been in the Black Lion!”

He was reminded why no one liked to get into fights with Pidge. She was smart enough to get right to a person’s weak points and tear you down. But he wasn’t about to take that lying down. “ _You_ were the one who wanted to replace Shiro! I never said someone else should take his place!”

“You’ll never come _close_ to replacing Shiro. You’re no leader- if any of us had to be the Black Lion, it should’ve been Allura!” Pidge snarled. She regretted the words as they were coming out. Sure, she meant it, but she shouldn’t have said it. Especially not to Keith’s face. They were all just getting used to the new order of things, him most of all. He didn’t need a blow to his confidence right now. 

Keith looked liked he was about two seconds away from starting to throw punches, and Pidge wasn’t far behind him. But to his credit, he took a deep breath and tried to remind himself that she was just missing Shiro. They all were. “Well, the Black Lion thinks differently. Now go get some rest. That’s- that’s an order.”

For a moment it looked like she was going to argue some more. Instead, she shot one last glare at him, spun around, and stalked off. Whether she was actually going to sleep or not, Keith had no idea. He had a sneaking suspicion that she wasn’t. Maybe she’d fall asleep working. 

•••

Stupid Keith. Didn’t he know that she was _busy?_ How was she supposed to rest when more than half her family was out there, going through who-knows what? And now Shiro was gone too. She was left without any of her main support system. All of the others cared about her, there was no doubt in her mind of that. The problem was that even though she’d been working with them for a very long time, and cared about them in return, it just wasn’t easy opening up to them. Especially about Matt and her father. None of them knew who they were, and only Shiro had ever met them. 

Deep down, Pidge knew she wasn’t being fair. Taking her frustrations out on Keith wasn’t helping anyone. No, frustration wasn’t the right word- she was absolutely devastated. Losing Shiro felt like losing her dad and Matt all over again. He was the one person she could talk to about them who knew who they were- who understood what she had gone through. She was more comfortable with him than she was with anyone else in the Castle, that’s for sure. He was her big brother too. 

It wasn’t Keith’s fault that he was missing. It wasn’t Keith’s fault that her dad and Matt were still missing either for that matter. But she felt like she needed someone to blame, to get angry at, to pick a fight with. And Keith was the only one who would actually fight back. Everyone else would just roll over and let her rant. She didn’t want that right now. 

No, what she wanted was a fight. A fight or some _goddamn results_. 

Amazingly, just as she was thinking that, Allura’s voice came through over the intercoms in the Castle. 

_“Paladins, there’s a Galra battle cruiser that just spotted us! We need to go, now!”_

Looks like she was going to get one of those things, at least. Pidge started to sprint out of her room. She only tripped twice on the way to her Lion, so she considered that a win. For some reason, she sensed hesitation from Green when she clambered into the pilot’s seat. But she pushed past it, assuring her that everything was just fine despite having no idea what the Lion was worried about. She was just fine, right? Without a second thought, Pidge shot forward out of Green’s hangar, and right past the other Lions in the process. Oops. 

_“Get back here, Pidge! We’re just going to form Voltron and take care of this,”_ Keith ordered. 

Not exactly what she’d been hoping for, but she’d take it. There would still be plenty of explosions and chances to beat the living shit out of the Galran vessel. 

At least in theory. It all was much more complicated when her mind was thrown in with the others. Her brain was already a bit muddled- it became much harder to keep her thoughts straight among the chaos of the rest of the Paladins. 

But she had done it before a hundred times over. It was old hat by now. She could do it in her sleep. Easy. Lasers. And explosions. 

_“Pidge? Pidge, we need the shield now!”_

Shield. Right. Where was that. Everything was swimming in front of her eyes, making it impossible to focus on what she needed to hit to summon the damn-

Voltron was then shaken by a massive blow that left everyone groaning. 

_“That’s it,” Keith snapped, “back to Lions! Pidge, you’re benched, get back to the Castle.”_

“What?! No way am I leaving you guys alone-“

 _“Hunk, get her back right now, then come help us finish up,”_ Keith left little room for debate. Before Pidge could come up with a retort she felt the Yellow Lion’s jaw clamp around her Lion and start to drag them both back away from the fighting. 

“Hunk! You damn traitor!”

 _“Sorry Pidge, but I think Keith is right about this one,”_ was all Hunk said. As per Keith’s instructions, as soon as the Green Lion touched down in her hangar, Hunk was back with the others, leaving Pidge to steam. 

“Well, like hell am I just staying here,” she grumbled to herself, getting ready to fly right back out and kick some more ass. If nothing else, just to rub it in everyone else’s faces and prove that she was fine. But at she leaned forward to grab at the controls, her Lion didn’t respond. When Pidge tried reaching out to her, she found only stubborn refusal. Green wasn’t moving- _she was taking their side!_ “Et tu, Brute?”

She had never thought her own Lion would betray her like that. A wave of sympathy washed over her from Green, but the Lion remained firm. The message was clear. Green was sorry, but Pidge wasn’t going anywhere with her. Fuck. Without thinking, Pidge yanked off her helmet and stormed out of the Lion’s hangar back to her room. Unfortunately, she crossed paths with Coran before arriving. 

“Ah, number five! Is everyone else landing?” 

“Screw them,” she snapped, plowing by him with a wave of her hand. She might’ve felt bad if she had caught a glimpse of Coran’s crestfallen face. But she didn’t, and all she felt was unreasonable rage. Whatever. This just gave her more time to search. She threw her bedroom door open, and quickly slammed it behind her. No time was wasted in throwing her helmet as hard as she could onto her bed and stomping over to her desk. Work. She just needed to work to get her mind off of- whatever exactly it was that was bothering her that she couldn’t quite place. 

But her mind was still reeling. If she wanted to get anything done, she needed to calm down. It was starting to get late- she should run and grab some food. Hunk wasn’t in the kitchen- and she was still mad at him- so she settled for just a plate of the goo. Not great, but it filled the hole in her stomach, so she was fine with it. As she ate, Pidge heard the others land, and rushed to finish before they came for dinner. As a small act of spite, she just left her dishes lying out on the counter for someone else to find. 

She started to make her way back to her room, then stopped. One of them was sure to be coming after her soon. And her room was the first place they would look. There had to be someplace else to go with something productive she could do. 

Her Lion. Although Pidge was still miffed with Green, she knew that the Lion wouldn’t let anyone that she didn’t want in. And she had copies of most of her resources in her Lion anyways. So she hurried to the hangar and locked herself in. “Alright girl, I’m sorry for the attitude earlier. I need to come in and get some work done though. I’m hiding from the others. I just need some time to myself,” Pidge said, almost like she was trying to convince herself as well. 

Sure enough, Green’s mouth opened and allowed Pidge in. “Thanks. Keep the others out for me.”

A low rumble let Pidge know that no one else was getting in. Another problem arose, however, right as soon as she began to study what she had for her work in her Lion. It was all old. Several recon trips old. She had to take a deep breath to keep from losing her shit all over again. This was okay. Maybe if she looked at these again, she would find something she’d missed the first time through. It never hurt to be thorough. That’s what she kept telling herself. 

So she went through it again. 

And again. 

And again. 

Digging through all the papers, all the footages, all the prison records. How in the hell were there no records of any humans in any of these? They were out there somewhere. She knew Matt had escaped at least once. But that was all she had on him. And even that was more than she could find on her dad and Shiro. There was absolutely nothing on them. Her dad was a _genius,_ surely they would’ve kept him as an asset. And the Galra- they had to take care of their scientists, right? If they wanted them to work, they had to keep them alive. And her dad had been a healthy man. Healthy enough to go on another space mission. 

There was nothing. 

Suddenly the overwhelming urge to cry came over her. She brought her knees up to her chest, and wrapped an arm around her legs. Her other hand wiped at the tears that were starting to flow. Pidge sniffed loudly, fighting back the whimpers that threatened to rise up from her chest. 

It was hard to do. She felt her Lion then, reaching out to her. It was hard to describe, but it felt like Green had wrapped her mind up in a blanket of peace and reassurance. A silent promise that the Green Lion knew that if anyone was capable of figuring this out, it was her Paladin. And oh, did that faith feel wonderful. It was something she hadn’t felt in a long time, she realized. Now if only there was some guarantee that the confidence would stay when Green let her be. She had a feeling it wouldn’t. So Pidge took a deep breath and allowed herself to enjoy it, just for a moment, before standing up. 

How long had she been working, anyway? Were the others in bed yet? A quick glance at a clock told her that the rest of the team were all very likely to be well on their ways to falling asleep. And that she had been in her Lion for a very long time. Excellent. Now she could get back to her room with the more recent intel. So Pidge walked out of her Lion, patting her giant paw as a sign of appreciation. It was time to hurry back to her room, and get back to work. 

Feeling better than she had been earlier, Pidge sat herself down at her desk once more, ready to jump back in. The only problem was, she couldn’t remember where she’d been at in the first place. She had to start all over. _Again._

 _“Fuck!”_ Pidge slammed her hands down on her desk and pushed herself up, swaying a little where she stood. Just as mad as before. Every _fucking_ way she turned was another _fucking_ dead end, and she was _fucking sick of it goddamn it!_ She wanted to scream and throw things and punch things. But she might alert someone if she did that, and she knew for a fact that she wouldn’t handle seeing anyone else very well right now. 

She wasn’t sure what she was doing. She couldn’t think. Okay, she was pacing, and kicking anything that got in her path. But she wasn’t sure why she was pacing. She just needed to move. Get the frustration out of her system. Get her eyes to stop blurring every damn thing around around her, then get back to work. How was it so hard to find three people in the entire universe? Ridiculous. 

Some part of her brain knew it was dumb to be getting so angry over this- anger made her sloppy. But while normally she was able to keep her emotions in check, right now it was all she could do to keep from throwing things. She was just so fucking pissed at everything, it was overwhelming. She couldn’t stop grinding her teeth. It didn’t make her feel any better, but it was something. Finally she stopped her pacing when she reached her bed again. A moment passed before she threw herself down and screamed into her mattress as loud as she could. Once she got that out of her system, she groaned and kicked her feet, trying to get her brain thinking again. 

If she didn’t want to fall asleep- and waste time- she needed to move. So she decided to run to the training deck to exercise for a brief jog. It was late, surely she’d be alone. No one to bother her. She could just run a few laps, get her blood pumping, she reasoned with herself. If nothing else, it might help clear her head a little bit. That would give her time to get away for a minute and (hopefully) give her a chance to think of other possible ways to find them. 

But of course Keith was there. 

Probably should’ve seen that coming. 

“Oh- hey Pidge.”

“Hi.” She wasn’t mad anymore, but she had a feeling he was. And she wasn’t sure how to address that. “Um... what are you doing?”

Keith raised his eyebrows, and glanced around the room. A simple gesture that clearly said _'you know damn well what I’m doing.’_

She groaned inwardly. Why did he have to be here? She didn’t want to be around anyone right now. Her head was pounding, and she doubted she’d be able to keep on a civil conversation. There wasn’t really much for her to say- or at least, not much that she _wanted_ to say. Of course, she could’ve (should’ve) apologized or something, but that wasn’t in her nature normally, and it especially wasn’t right now. Instead she just nodded curtly, went about pulling off her sweatshirt and started to jog. 

Soon enough, she felt her heart beating more rapidly, spreading oxygen throughout her body. A welcome change from the stasis she had been experiencing for the last who-knows-how-long. She only made it one lap before her legs really started to scream at her. It wasn’t that they were sore, exactly. They were just getting hard to move, like she was wading through thigh-deep water. But she’d be damned if she let herself be stopped that easily. 

Two laps, and she was trying to convince herself that she was feeling better. A little lightheaded, but then she hadn’t gone running in a few days. She was just getting back into the swing of it. That was a pretty normal reaction. 

Three laps, and the world started to spin. Was the room always this blurry? Why were there two Keiths? And why were they both running at her? And when had she laid down on the floor? 

It was right about then she realized something was wrong. Keith was yelling for starters, and she was not in the mood for that. She tried to tell him to shut up, but her mouth wasn’t cooperating. Her head was resting in Keith’s lap now, and he was instructing her to take deep breaths. Although a part of her felt like arguing just to argue, she realized that right now she didn’t have the wherewithal to make a good one. So she went along with it, breathing in and out at his instructions. 

Oddly enough, it did actually help. Soon enough she was able to sit up. Granted, she was still rocking back and forth ever so slightly, but she looked more focused than she had earlier. 

“Pidge, how long has it been since you slept?”

“Like, four hours.”

“Okay, let me rephrase that. How long has it been since you’ve slept for more than fifteen minutes?” Keith asked as patiently as he could. 

She furrowed her brow as she struggled to think back. “It’s been... a little longer. I just need to get up and moving though, and I’ll be just fine. Maybe drink- some water or that weird Altean coffee.”

It was becoming very hard to resist shaking her. She _knew_ better than this, so _why_ was she acting this way? That was the one thing he couldn’t figure out. She was a very determined person, they all knew that, but this was absolutely ridiculous. Determination was fast giving way to obsession, and he didn’t have the first clue to knowing how to handle it. How would Shiro have handled this? He knew for a fact that Shiro had found her staying up too late before- probably for similar reasons- but he had no clue what it was that Shiro had done to get her to rest. _This_ was why he hadn’t wanted to be the leader of Voltron. Half of him wanted to run and wake up Allura. She was a natural leader, and much better at dealing with people than he was. 

But this wasn’t people. This was Pidge. His friend. He should be able to talk her down. “Pidge, you _need_ to rest. Please. You just passed out after running three laps. That’s not like you. If you get some sleep, you’ll feel better.”

Pidge’s face was hard to read. He couldn’t tell if anything he’d said struck a chord with her. Good god, he was bad at this. Very briefly, Keith wondered if perhaps she didn't want to feel better. Could she be feeling guilty or something? It was a possibility, but he’d never known Pidge to feel guilty of anything. She _was_ acting oddly. Right now though, he didn’t particularly care about that. Whatever it really was that was bothering her could wait until after she went and got some damn sleep.

Her mouth opened slightly, then closed. She shook her head, and stood up, wobbling in place before she just walked off. 

_‘What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?!’_ Keith groaned and rubbed his forehead. Leading was hell. Would it be bad leadership if he just knocked her out? She was just multiple accidents waiting to happen. Surely by now she wasn’t even thinking straight. How none of this was a wake-up call to her, he had absolutely no idea. 

•••

Pidge sat back down at her desk _again_. After she’d walked out on Keith, Pidge had gone to the kitchen to get herself some cold water. It helped to refresh her, but it didn’t do anything else. She felt... miserable. And very near tears. Angry, sad, embarrassed, _exhausted_. Angry at the universe, for taking so much from her. Sad that she couldn’t find any way to get it back. Embarrassed at how she had acted- no one on her team had done anything wrong. They were only trying to help, and she had treated them like shit. 

But above all, she was just mind-numbingly tired. Keith was right. But she just couldn’t sleep, not when Matt and her dad and now Shiro were all still out there somewhere. Going through god-knows what. She _needed_ to find a way to find them. Because if they went missing, then it was possible for the others to go missing too- Hunk, Lance, Allura, Coran, Keith- all of them. The thought of losing anyone else and not being able to find them made her feel things that she’d rather just keep bottled up. 

Miserable. Just downright terrible. Her body was achy and weak, something she wasn’t used to at all. And now her brain was failing her. If she didn’t have her brain, then she didn’t have _anything_. 

She needed results though. She just needed to keep going. 

•••

Before he went to bed himself, Keith decided he should go look in on Pidge. He didn’t particularly want to, but it was his job now after all. God he wished Shiro were here. Steeling himself, he tapped lightly on the door. He didn’t get an answer, so he tried the door handle. 

His first instinct when he saw her at her desk was to get mad. But then he realized that she was hunched over, and breathing steadily. She had finally fallen asleep. At a terrible angle, he realized. _‘She’s gonna hurt her back or something if she stays like that.’_

Keith studied the room carefully before walking through and creating a path from her desk to her bed. It wasn’t far, but if Keith was going to have to carry her, he’d really rather not trip and wake her up. That would just be an absolute disaster that he did not want to deal with. He carefully scooped her up from her chair, and moved to lay her down on her messy bed. Good god, her room was a nightmare. How did she live like this? He shook his head, reminding himself that it was her room to do what she pleased with. 

Glancing down at her sleeping form, Keith turned his attention back to whatever it was she’d been working on. He only felt a little bad for snooping. But he was desperately curious to see what she had been working on. Besides it wasn’t exactly anything personal. A bunch of letters and numbers mixed together in what looked to be several languages that meant absolutely nothing to him. Then his eyes landed on the photos. 

Where had she gotten these pictures of her family? To the extent of his knowledge, she hadn’t had a camera when they came into space. But she did have her phone, he remembered, and it was totally plausible to think that she’d be able to upload them somewhere before it died. They were nice photos- more candid rather than posed. They showed a happy family, all laughing together. In each of them, Pidge was smiling wider than he’d ever seen before. Suddenly he felt a pang of jealousy- this was something he’d never actually had before. His dad had loved him unconditionally, but he wasn’t always around very much before he had died. 

The longer he looked at those pictures, the more he understood Pidge’s fixation. She’d lost half of this happy family in just one day. And for all they knew, Colleen could be dead as well at this point. It wasn’t like they’d had any contact with Earth. It was possible that Pidge was the last Holt living. Judging by her recent behavior, Keith assumed she had considered that as well. He could remember when his dad died- it had been absolutely devastating. And she had lost more than just her dad. From what he’d gathered, Pidge and her brother had been friends- he’d never really spoken with her about it at length, but he had a suspicion that he’d been her only friend. 

And now Shiro was gone too, without a trace. Keith knew how much Pidge looked up to Shiro. She had to have been reliving what had happened with her family. He sighed and turned to look back at Pidge where she was sleeping. She looked so peaceful right now. It was hard to reconcile this Pidge with the one he’d seen earlier, storming around and trying to pick fights. Keith walked back over and pulled a blanket up around her shoulders, hoping that she would stay asleep. And he desperately hoped she was dreaming of her family all together again on Earth. He’d never seen anyone who needed it as much as she did.

**Author's Note:**

> Poor Pidge has just been having a really tough time lately, and I'm probably having way too much fun with it. If you like this, feel free to shoot me a request @ http://the-sinnamon-roll-writes.tumblr.com/ . If you've already requested something, you're more than welcome to ask for something else too :)


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